NWO M-grants are intended for innovative, high-quality, fundamental research and/or studies involving matters of scientific urgency. The M-grant offers researchers the possibility to elaborate creative and risky ideas and to realise scientific innovations that can form the basis for the research themes of the future.

Via curve balls and optical tweezers to a quantum gate

Quantum computers can potentially solve certain problems much faster than their classical counterparts. In their project, Robert Spreeuw and Rene Gerritsma aim to realize a novel type of quantum logic gate for trapped-ion qubits: to make qubits interact controllably and generate quantum entanglement. Their gate is based on an optical analogy of the Magnus effect, better known for curving the trajectory of a spinning ball through the air. In the project, the researchers will use optical tweezers to push ion qubits to a side depending on their logical state, yielding just the type of interaction needed for a quantum gate.

The mystery of the missing mixing angle

Quarks are elementary particles that combine to form atomic nuclei. Quarks come in six flavors and it is possible for one quark flavor to mix into another, causing nuclear radioactive decays. Our current best model of how nature works at the smallest scales predicts how this mixing should work, but these predictions disagree with the most precise experiments. In Jordy de Vries' proposal, new calculational methods are developed to resolve the quark mixing mystery and to find out who or what is the culprit behind it.